Sportsbet is Australia’s most popular online sports betting provider and has a wide market reach throughout the country.
The sports betting provider recently ran a set of gambling ads that encouraged bettors to convince their friends to open accounts on the site. The problem with this approach was that it ran contrary to gambling advertisement rules in Australia and as a result, Sportsbet has found itself in trouble and has been hit with a fine.
Sportsbet is the latest gambling business to be fined because of New South Wales’ ban on advertisements that encourages people to gamble. Liquor & Gaming NSW is the state’s regulator who came down hard on Sportsbet for breaching state gaming laws.
The regulator started the investigation after the advertisement appeared on the Sportsbet website on July 5, 2018. Downing Centre Local Court decided on the fine recently and ordered Sportsbet to pay a $10,000 fine along with $7,300 in legal costs.
The advertisement in question depicted two men with their thumbs up and the message that if players encouraged a friend to sign up for Sportsbet, they would get a $100 bonus. According to the state regulator, this violated the state’s law that prohibited ads that encouraged people to participate in gambling activities, especially if it had inducements like sign-up bonuses.
Sportsbet decided to plead guilty to the charges brought against them and agreed with the court’s decision. While it wasn’t a massive fine for the online sportsbook, the ruling did send a strong message to the company as well as other sportsbooks operating in Australia.
In a statement, a Sportsbet spokesman said
Despite Sportsbet’s long-standing record of compliance with advertising legislation across Australia, we accept that in this particular instance, we didn’t meet the required standard.
Magistrate Jacqueline Trad supported the conviction against Sportsbet and said that the state’s parliament had increased fines for operators who violated gambling advertising regulations. The new laws came into effect on July 2018 and under them gambling operators found guilty of violating the new rules could be hit with a fine up to $55,000 per ad. Company directors can also be prosecuted for violating gaming laws.
There have been a number of other bookmakers who have also been pulled up once the new law came into play. The last one to get fined was online bookmaker Neds. The company was convicted on five charges for violating new laws and had to pay a fine of $18,000.
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